Boundary Patrol to Detect Illegal Land Use

Tracking legal and official territories of protected area under DOE realm, in order to realize DOE guards with environmental sites, was started based on proposal by Japanese Expert Team (JET) as a part of environmental zoning and land use management working group. JET believes that tracking and patrolling the boundaries of DOE sites is one of the bases of such systems management and governance. Hence, a program for Gilan DOE sites over the boundaries was planned and supported by JET between 25-March and 30-March for Selkeh wildlife refuge (WLR) and Sorkhankol WLR in Anzali wetland.

Surveys at multiple times for guards at Selkeh guard station (GS) and Sorkhankol GS were planned and conducted with national GIS expert of JET. The patrol were done based on the latest DOE official boundaries. The guards found survey very useful in land use management and protection and they were familiarized with the latest condition of land uses, activities and possible illegal land uses inthe protected areas. As the results of the survey, DOE guards noticed several illegal land uses out of the boundary. Unfortunately, DOE doesn’t have enough number of guards to stop all of illegal land use. JET strongly recommends that number and equipments of DOE guard should be enhanced to protect the Anzali Wetland.

Boundary patrol is still ongoing and JET is planning to conduct such boundary surveys for other DOE sites (e.g. Syakeshim protected area and Choukam WLR)